The community group who care for Portobello Community Orchard at Brunstane Road South are holding their traditional annual Wassail on Saturday 25 January, from 2-4 pm. There will be the customary spiced apple juice and baking plus a bonfire to keep out the winter chill. All are very welcome to join in with this ancient celebration of the turn of the year with a bit of community song and dance. More here: https://m.facebook.com/pages/category/Community/Portobello-Community-Orchard-539555379554046/
Portobello Community Council meets on Monday evening. Here are the draft minutes of the last one: http://www.portobellocc.org/pccpn/2020/01/18/372nd-draft-minutes-november-2019/. Agenda and more on their website here: http://www.portobellocc.org/
David Calder’s Porty Podcast last week was all about our new charity, Craigmillar Now, with Rachael Cloughton and Andrew Crummy. It’s another good one! Listen here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/71622/2519509. Our Board Members have had positive meetings with the manager of Fort Kinnaird, Liam Smith and with Audrey Wilson of the National Archives of Scotland this week and we’ve also met on site with the architects who worked on the restoration of the beautiful interior of the former Craigmillar Community Arts building interior in 2016. We hope to have a newsletter up on the website shortly: https://craigmillarnow.com/
At the end next week, the Council will finally publish Choices for City Plan 2030 for two months of intensive consultation through workshops and individual feedback. The document itself is as plain English and as accessible as we can possibly make it, so do have a look, engage and respond. The report which went to Committee on Wednesday and was approved unanimously had an almost final draft, subject to a couple of textual tweaks. Link here: https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/cityplan2030.
Edinburgh’s City Plan 2030 is being consulted upon in parallel with the City Mobility Plan. You can’t have one without the other. Link here: https://democracy.edinburgh.gov.uk/documents/s12642/City%20Mobility%20Plan.pdf
In line with Scottish Government, one of the strands within the City Plan 2030 is the commitment to provide place plans for each development site. More about them here: https://www.pas.org.uk/news/weve-published-our-local-place-plan-guide/. If this seems familiar, it’s the kind of process we started on the Portobello Westbank site before Powerleague decided they are not moving in the foreseeable future and started to reinvest in their pitches.
Over two million households in the UK are living without at least one essential white goods item such as a cooker, fridge or washing machine. There is help out there if you know where to look: https://grants-search.turn2us.org.uk/. It was good to meet up with Ems Harrington of Turn2Us’ Edinburgh Trust this week to discuss what more we might do together to help meet the needs of individuals through one-off small grants.
‘Sea Wrack and Flotsam’ is a new solo exhibition of work by Portobello artist, Jude Nixon, opening at the Skylark on Wednesday 29 January at 7pm. All are very welcome to opening night!
On Brighton Place, the Council are currently discussing the final scope and programme of remedial works or ‘snagging’ with the contractor. That includes the drainage at the Portobello High Street end. Once the scope and programme is agreed, we’ll get timescales. After consulting the Council’s head of finance, I can confirm that the final contract price was was £784,469, not the £1.1 million budget figure that keeps being quoted in social media. With extra work, e..g. at Southfield Place, the final out-turn figure is likely to be of the order of £805,000.
We Portobello/Craigmillar Councillors were hoping for a finalised briefing note, which we could share with you all on the proposed way forward for the ‘Joppa Triangle’ east of Brunstane Road and we just got a draft in today. Hopefully by next week it can be finalised for circulation. We are expecting this briefing to be the basis of a report to the next Transport and Environment Committee of the Council.
A reminder that we have Portobello/Craigmillar Neighbourhood Network pop up events happening next week in Craigmillar and Magdalene. This is to gather ideas for spend for the new Neighbourhood Environment Programme capital budget for small local projects. You can find out about the projects that we have already delivered, in partnership with local people, and listen to new ideas that people might have for projects which could be delivered this way. These pop-up events to take on Tuesday 28 January 1pm – 3pm at Craigmillar Library and Thursday 30 January, 4.30pm – 6.30pm at Magdalene Community Centre. See you there? And remember too that there is a Big Lottery grant funding event on Thursday 30 January, 10 am – 1 pm at the White House, 70 Niddrie Mains Road.
The building of our new Castlebrae Community High School is proceeding well. The latest information can be found on the School Website www.castlebrae.org.uk with the Replacement Castlebrae Section featuring a gallery of recent images, including those from last week’s sod-cutting ceremony https://castlebraechs.wordpress.com/construction/ which marked the main construction start.
Do let me know if you want ‘updated’ on anything else or have further questions or comments.
Best wishes for a good weekend!
Maureen
Councillor Maureen Child
Labour Councillor Portobello/Craigmillar Ward
Office: 0131 529 3268
Mobile: 07718 666 481
Facebook Page: Maureen Child Standing Up for Portobello/Craigmillar
Twitter: @MaureenChild1